Savvy Positioning Play: Personality vs. Program Type
Many know I work in tech, but media (particularly broadcast media) is also a practice area and guilty pleasure of mine. Broadcast media all boils down to programming--a moving target if ever there was one since consumers are, well, finnicky. Our tastes change and change on a dime. In '98, when I worked at ABC, positioning was, and to some degree still is, driven by demos. ABC targeted the family-friendly demos, NBC targeted the single-friendly demos and CBS owned the mature-audience demos.
Lately the cable networks' strategy has skewed towards program type, or genre. It's worked well to differentiate several of them, particularly since these networks rely far more heavily than broadcast biggies on syndicated/also-ran programming. TNT's platform is drama (tagline: "We Know Drama"), TBS has packaged itself around comedy (tagline: "Very Funny") and, for a while, FX seemed to be banking on "edgy". But if last season's run of Nip/Tuck is any indication, the network has lost its edge and much of its writing talent--the show didn't jump the shark, it dove headfirst into a tank of them.
What's impressing me these days is USA's strategy of positioning around personalities (tagline: "Characters Welcome"). What's so impressive about it?
#1: Enables a rich range: By virtue of centering on personalities, the network has unleashed a varied, layered lineup of comedy (Monk, Psych), drama (The Dead Zone, House) and even sci-fi (The 4400). But the range doesn't come across as all over the map because the personality positioning provides a common theme.
#2: Invites audience involvement: USA's "Characters Welcome" campaign is impressive because it not only promotes the network's stars, it also invites viewer participation. Through its "show us your character" campaign, the network features contests and segments promoting everyday characters that write-in with their stories, including unlikely break dancers, prom-queen ventriloquists, etc.
Smart positioning play; I'm betting it begets more Emmy noms and deep-pocketed advertisers for USA.
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